India set to pose growing challenge to China at sea; New Delhi is developing its strategic partnership with the US, Australia and Japan as part of efforts to counter China’s growing influence in the Indian Ocean

South China Morning Post ^ | 07/05/2020 | Liu Zhen

[Zhang Fei]

[Japan DID succeed in smashing and grabbing very quickly; the problem for them was they had to extend their power out further to create a buffer zone out of a few islands (hence the bombing of Pearl Harbor and attempt to take Midway) - because no matter how quickly they spread through southeast Asia and Chinese mainland, they couldn’t have bombers show up over Tokyo as they did in the Doolittle Raid from the east.]

---

Without Japanese encroachments on Western interests in the Far East, they would have been left alone to complete their conquest of China. There was no appetite, in Washington or London, to start a war with Japan. They wasted huge amounts of money supporting far flung assets hastily acquired that could only be defended at huge cost. These were resources that could have been employed to pacify China. A Japan whose supply lines to China weren’t being routinely interdicted by American subs would be one far less strapped for resources than the one that ended up almost starving in 1945, as the Pacific Fleet established new bases ever closer to the home islands.

Much as India was the Jewel in the Crown, China could have been the Jewel in Imperial Japan’s Crown, once pacified. Instead, in the Japanese military leadership’s infinite wisdom, the decision was made to chase squirrels across the Pacific. It’s probably the same impulse that animates the tendency toward degenerate gambling among Orientals. Why not bet your entire bankroll on the number 36?

[kearnyirish2]

The size and population of China made conquest impossible; like the USSR they could absorb tremendous losses, and those supply lines for Japan would just get longer and longer.

It is the reason why Europe eventually abandoned its colonies (in many cases without fighting to keep them); France couldn’t deal with the costs of fighting a war in Algeria, which is very close by. It would have just gone on forever; they couldn’t occupy the whole country. Portugal’s attempts to pacify its African colonies bankrupted the country and set it back decades economically - and they lost them anyway.

[Zhang Fei]

[The size and population of China made conquest impossible; like the USSR they could absorb tremendous losses, and those supply lines for Japan would just get longer and longer.

It is the reason why Europe eventually abandoned its colonies (in many cases without fighting to keep them); France couldn’t deal with the costs of fighting a war in Algeria, which is very close by. It would have just gone on forever; they couldn’t occupy the whole country. Portugal’s attempts to pacify its African colonies bankrupted the country and set it back decades economically - and they lost them anyway.]

---

The fact that almost 1,000 years of China’s 2,200 year history involved foreign rule suggests that this is a stretch. There’s this perception that the entire country fought invaders 24/7/365. In reality, a good chunk of the Chinese population has repeatedly cooperated with whatever foreign rulers put themselves on the throne. As long as they weren’t personally high-ranking members of the ancien regime, they saluted the new ruler once the almost mandatory show of resistance had been trotted out, for appearances’ sake.

Europe abandoned its colonies because a humane approach towards quelling native revolts simply proved too expensive to sustain. We now cry crocodile tears over the things that were done to the Indians from the first colonist on, while enjoying the produce of the land they won for us. Fact is if we had to win that land using present-day rules of engagement, it would be unwinnable, even using modern technology. However using the rules of engagement of the time of conquest, there is no way Europe could not have hung on to its colonies. But the body count would have been tremendous. Here’s a sample of what the Dutch and the Spanish did just to the Chinese settlers in their Far Eastern holdings:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangley_Rebellion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1740_Batavia_massacre

[A Navy Vet]

"Such a nuclear exchange would do wonders for the US economy as well."

I don't understand why some people invite a nuclear exchange between any nations. Do people realize how many countries now have nuclear capabilities, with some having 2nd strike systems? And what of the nuke nations who support their alliances? They launch, also? End times.

[kearnyirish2]

You’re describing Europeans killing Chinese outside of China; not sure how it relates.

After WWII, in which colonized people around the globe saw Western countries humbled by an Asian power (Japan), there was no way to stop the inevitable. Instead of fairly backwards populations being subjugated by advanced Europeans, you now had armed populations (who in many cases had been called upon to help their colonizers during the war), realize that there was no way the Europeans could prevent them from rising.

The lower casualties suffered by European colonizers during their attempts to quell independence movements after WWII were meaningless; the colonized people had many more lives to lose, and were willing to do so.

[Zhang Fei]

[You’re describing Europeans killing Chinese outside of China; not sure how it relates.]

---

These are just the mentions I found on Wikipedia. In passing, I’ve read about others unrelated to the Chinese, but only on hard copy. (This was in the course of reading about battles in the region - the bottom line is that the methods used on both sides weren’t pretty). The Dutch and the Portuguese presumably saw the Chinese as rival colonists who would, in time, bring Chinese military expeditions with them. Hence it was necessary to liquidate these populations in order to prevent the disease from metastasizing.

These were carried out in the process of getting the natives to submit, and far larger scale, understandably, since the Chinese were a pimple demographically in that area. Like the Indians in the Americas, the natives of the Orient already had their own kings, aristocracies and traditions. They weren’t necessarily thrilled to be greeted by Western interlopers looking for a cut of their revenues.

For instance, the battle between the Malays and the Portuguese during the defeat of the Malaccan sultanate ended in the typical bloodbath. The Chinese response was equally vicious:

---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan%E2%80%93Portuguese_war
[In response to the Portuguese invasion of Malacca, which was a Chinese tributary state, the Chinese Imperial Government imprisoned and executed multiple Portuguese envoys after torturing them in Guangzhou. The Malaccans had informed the Chinese of the Portuguese seizure of Malacca, to which the Chinese responded with hostility toward the Portuguese. The Malaccans told the Chinese of the deception the Portuguese used, disguising plans for conquering territory as mere trading activities, and told of all the atrocities committed by the Portuguese.[4] Malacca was under Chinese protection and the Portuguese invasion angered the Chinese.[5]

Due to the Malaccan Sultan lodging a complaint against the Portuguese invasion to the Chinese Emperor, the Portuguese were greeted with hostility from the Chinese when they arrived in China.[6] The Sultan’s complaint caused “a great deal of trouble” to Portuguese in China.[7] The Chinese were very “unwelcoming” to the Portuguese.[8] The Malaccan Sultan, based in Bintan after fleeing Malacca, sent a message to the Chinese, which combined with Portuguese banditry and violent activity in China, led the Chinese authorities to execute 23 Portuguese and torture the rest of them in jails. After the Portuguese set up posts for trading in China and committed piratical activities and raids in China, the Chinese responded with the complete extermination of the Portuguese in Ningbo and Quanzhou[9] Pires, a Portuguese trade envoy, was among those who died in the Chinese dungeons.[10] The rest of the Portuguese embassy stayed imprisoned for life.[11]

The Chinese defeated a Portuguese fleet in 1521 at the First Battle of Tamao (1521), killing and capturing so many Portuguese that the Portuguese had to abandon their junks and retreat with only three ships, only escaping back to Malacca because a wind scattered the Chinese ships as the Chinese launched a final attack.[12]

The Chinese effectively held the Portuguese embassy hostage, using them as a bargaining chip in demanding that the Portuguese restore the deposed Malaccan Sultan (King) to his throne.[13]

The Chinese proceeded to execute several Portuguese by beating and strangling them, and torturing the rest. The other Portuguese prisoners were put into iron chains and kept in prison.[14] The Chinese confisticated all of the Portuguese property and goods in the Pires embassy’s possession.[15]

In 1522 Martim Afonso de Merlo Coutinho was appointed commander of another Portuguese fleet sent to establish diplomatic relations.[16] The Chinese defeated the Portuguese ships led by Coutinho at the Second Battle of Tamao (1522). 40 Portuguese were captured and one ship destroyed during the battle. The Portuguese were forced to retreat to Malacca.[17]

The Chinese forced Pires to write letters for them, demanding that the Portuguese restore the deposed Malaccan Sultan (King) back onto his throne. The Malay ambassador to China was to deliver the letter.[18]

The Chinese had sent a message to the deposed Sultan (King) of Malacca concerning the fate of the Portuguese embassy, which the Chinese held prisoner. When they received his reply, the Chinese officials then proceeded to execute the Portuguese embassy, slicing their bodies into multiple pieces. Their genitalia were inserted into the oral cavity. The Portuguese were executed in public in multiple areas in Guangzhou, deliberately by the Chinese in order to show that the Portuguese were insignificant in the eyes of the Chinese.[19] When more Portuguese ships landed and were seized by the Chinese, the Chinese then executed them as well, cutting off the genitalia and beheading the bodies and forcing their fellow Portuguese to wear the body parts, while the Chinese celebrated with music. The genitalia and heads were displayed strung up for display in public, after which they were discarded.[20]

In response to Portuguese piracy and establishing bases in Fujian at Wuyu island and Yue harbor at Zhangzhou, Shuangyu island in Zhejiang, and Nan’ao island in Guangdong, the Imperial Chinese Right Deputy Commander Zhu Wan exterminated all the pirates and razed the Shuangyu Portuguese base, using force to prohibit trading with foreigners by sea.[21]]

---

The bottom line is that quelling native rebellions at a reasonable cost requires methods that modern Western sensibilities simply will not countenance. That wasn’t true of Japanese sensibilities during the invasion of China. Japanese advances stalled because Imperial Japan decided to chase squirrels across the Pacific at great material cost. But the areas they occupied were relatively clear of guerrilla activity because of their “Three Alls” policy, much as Lidice bought the Germans relative peace in Czechoslovakia after Heydrich was gunned down.

---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Alls_Policy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice_massacre

The idea that the natives had unlimited numbers of people willing to die is not borne out by what happened during the Japanese occupation of the Orient. Guerrilla activity was very limited throughout Imperial Japan’s WWII territories, simply because of the savage reprisals that resulted. In fact, they began with atrocities (in line with traditional military practices in the region, and of Western powers that had previously imposed their writ there) to warn of the consequences to follow if further resistance was encountered.

Because of its superiority in weaponry, the West could literally have killed every single person within its territories in the colonies and repopulated them with European settlers. That they refrained from slaughtering even a fraction of the people they had hacked down centuries earlier suggests that they had lost the appetite to do what was necessary to make the land their own.

But even Imperial Japan wasn’t all stick. Multiple post-war leaders served Japanese occupation forces in an official capacity, including Indonesia’s Sukarno, Burma’s Aung San, South Korea’s Park Chung-hee, Taiwan’s Lee Teng-hui and Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew. Imperial Japan took brutal measures to ensure pacify its conquered territories. That even Imperial Japan was able to co-opt some of the Orient’s brightest movers and shakers in spite of these measures suggests that the West had ample room to apply the stick, while retaining the services of the region’s best and brightest, much as Alexander brought into his service numerous Persian talents despite his sacking of Persepolis, the Persian capital. (This sacking involved the slaughter of the entire male population and the sale of the women and children into slavery).

https://www.livius.org/sources/content/diodorus/alexander-sacks-persepolis/

But the West drew back, which is why its Oriental empires are a historical artifact rather than a workaday reality.

[kearnyirish2]

The trauma of the atomic bombs was probably as close as we could come; it had the desired effect.

[Zhang Fei]

[The trauma of the atomic bombs was probably as close as we could come; it had the desired effect.]

---

All too true. In the postwar era, the lawyers got their hooks into the military, and the West can’t even do the kinds of things that burned Hamburg and Dresden to the ground, thereby paving the way for a quiet postwar occupation. Heck, even slaughtering fleeing Iraqi troops during Desert Storm (Highway of Death, anyone?) was denounced as a war crime. If Uncle Sam had wiped out hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops during the invasion of Iraq, by patiently advancing on a broad front instead of doing the shock-free and awe-free dash to Baghdad, would the occupation have been far quieter? We will never know.